


Dare Not Speak Its Name

by severinne



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Drabble Sequence, F/M, M/M, Romantic Comedy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-10
Updated: 2011-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-25 23:29:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/severinne/pseuds/severinne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Litton needs some love in his life...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dare Not Speak Its Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chamekke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamekke/gifts).



> Written to order for the still-fabulous-despite-this-request Chamekke, who bought my fic writing services in support of Amproof's ailing cat, Puppy. It's a rash of new pairings I never would have tackled without an explicit request so thanks for expanding those horizons (I think...)!

  
Though it filled him with pride, the uniform spoke nothing of his desires.

He whispered past it instead, soaking his intentions deeper than skin with daubs of aftershave, drowning his frustration when men inevitably passed him by.

Until seaglass eyes flared wide as alert nostrils, hands twitching at the ends of sleeves too short for lanky, lovely limbs. Uniforms were nothing to their lusts, abandoned to the locker room floor in the odd hours of their fumbling embraces.

Until Gene took up plainclothes and CID, leaving him in a silence shamed with a warning glare.

Litton never forgave that betrayal.

* * *

The new desk sergeant was as hard as any man in the station. That, Litton mused, might just suffice.

He splashed out on a fine restaurant and Aramis, wooed his way through three courses and a gentlemanly escort to Sergeant Dobbs’ door.

The knee to the groin was unexpected.

‘Grabby paws off, sunshine,’ Dobbs spat. ‘I haven’t got what you’re wanting in the trouser department anyhow.’

Litton squeaked his confusion, cowering against the garden rail while her stern features softened.

‘Course I was only in it for the meal,’ she tutted. ‘But I’m not DS Hunt, and you know it.’

* * *

Given the scandalous rumours surrounding the lad’s abrupt departure from CID, Fletcher should have been ripe with gossip, nowhere near this shy.

Or this enchanting.

‘Nowt to tell.’ Fletcher drained his pint, wiped his exquisite moustache. ‘I’d had enough is all.’

‘Perfectly understandable,’ Litton murmured, CID forgotten along with his unfinished drink. ‘Shall we?’

Being a consummate gentleman, Litton waited for the car’s seclusion before making his move.

‘Bloody hell,’ Fletcher sputtered, pulling back with a twist of that kissable mouth. ‘Is everyone in A Division a poof? You, Tyler…’

He vanished promptly, leaving Litton with that promising name. _Tyler…_

* * *

There was exquisite poetry in this moment, in having Gene’s favourite lapdog pinned beneath him in the same locker room that had witnessed those earliest trysts. He had found Tyler in a funny mood, absent-minded and ripe for the picking and now, _now_ he would be his.

He nibbled at restless pink lips, irritation growing at Tyler’s litany of nonsense, mutters ending with something that sounded rather like…

‘Stoat?’ he echoed nonsensically.

‘Stoat,’ Tyler confirmed, nodding vaguely as he rolled to his feet and stumbled for the door.

Litton stared after him, resigned to disappointment. Everyone knew Tyler was mad.

* * *

This pub was classier than most beyond the station steps, the sort with candles flickering in amber glass on each table and a bar canopied in martini glasses. Tyler might have liked it, Litton mused with a sigh and a sweeping eyeful of the hushed room of strangers in ones and twos, already coupled or looking for the same…

His gaze stuttered over a man at the opposite end of the bar, lips pursing as he toyed with the tingling sense of familiarity echoing off high cheekbones and a lazy posture. As ever, it was the clothing that slipped him into Litton’s fine memory – a dapper grey three-piece suit, pocket watch and handkerchief neatly arranged even though Litton knew he was overdressed compared to any other man in his department.

‘Shouldn’t you be at the Railways Arms?’

The face that turned at his carefully raised voice confirmed Litton’s identification; his features were as lean as his body, creased with maturity belied by the easy fall of chestnut hair across an attractively furrowed brow. ‘It’s not obligatory, you know,’ he answered lightly, more politely than Litton had learned to expect from any CID man.

‘That’s not how Gene makes it look.’

The other detective spared a quiet laugh. ‘Depends on the night,’ he agreed. ‘Felt like a quiet one for a change.’

‘All on your own?’

He paused to finish his drink – something as neat as his suit, probably scotch – before answering. ‘Don’t have to be,’ he offered casually. ‘What’re you having?’

Litton ordered another dry martini, pleasantly surprised to learn that his newfound companion was on cognac rather than scotch. He ordered the same for their second round and found it even more pleasurable on the third.

The end of the fourth round warmed Litton right down to the blood racing even hotter through his veins. He repressed a hungry purr as his fellow detective helped him from his bar stool with a long-fingered hand at his elbow and negotiated their way out to the shock of a rainy night.

‘Brrr.’ Litton shivered dramatically against his companion, who chuckled wryly and drew him enticingly closer.

‘My car’s over the road there,’ he offered, steering Litton to a blue sedan upholstered in pristine velveteen across its wide back seat. Litton sprawled in what he hoped was an elegant manner.

‘Should you be driving in your state?’ he asked, slow and deliberate.

‘Wasn’t planning on it.’ The car door slammed shut and Litton moaned at the full weight of a body stretched alongside his own, sharing the length of the back seat. Hands groped in darkness for the buttons of his waistcoat.

‘I…’ Litton gasped, distracted by a skilled mouth nibbling below his ear. ‘I… don’t even remember your name,’ he confessed breathlessly.

‘Shhh…’ A tongue lapped at his skin, fingers nimbly unfastening his buttons. ‘No names, not yet…’

And as the nameless one took him apart, one fragile thread at a time, Litton couldn’t help but agree, if only for now.


End file.
